Or take the same chicken, cover it in salt, buttermilk, and highly processed white flour, then fry it in duck fat like the New York Times does in this recipe:
Is it conspiracy that they use some of the same techniques as the processed food industry, or is it just those are some of the basic techniques to make food taste good.
Look at that recipe - you have big bits of meat, with bones, and some salt / fat coating. You take a bite, and you chew it, and then you have to fiddle about getting bits off the bone.
Popcorn chicken is tiny. You pop one in, and you're reaching for the next one as you're chewing the first.
The recipe uses big bits of chicken. Popcorn chicken uses the bits of the carcass that would normally have been used for soup.
There are different ratios of fat to meat content - popcorn chicken has a lot more fat, because it has a lot more coating.
Both of them are tasty, but one has been engineered to be maximally tasty at minimal cost.
Those are good points. The confluence of maximally tasty and minimal cost can leads to very unhealthy food. I just don't like the intent that is implied when the article uses inflammatory phrases like science of addiction or designed to addict.
molecular gastronomy does to some extent end up making junk food sometimes, using the same techniques and ingredients. But not many people can afford to get obese on it.
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/good-techn...
Is it conspiracy that they use some of the same techniques as the processed food industry, or is it just those are some of the basic techniques to make food taste good.